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Linus, review the Lego Computer

Linus you gotta do a review on this, it's so different and yeah plz do it      :)  :)  :) PLZ i really want to see how it preforms and the air flow. PPPPLZ     :D  :D  :D 

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whats a lego computer?

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Guessing he means - http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?page_id=1694in which case - waste of time. Airflow is probably trash given that there's no fan intake, much less exhaust.

 

Edit: and overpriced as all hell...

PdGi.png

 

1k for an i3 ofc

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Building a computer in a fridge would be more successful than building in this case . . . It seems like a waste of time. 

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Too many "plzzzzzzzz" but I would like the review.

My Main PC:

CPUi5 3570k CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper T4 Motherboard: Asus p8z77-v pro  RAM: Crucial Balistic 2x4gb  GPU: Two PNY GTX 680's in SLI Case: Some rando Antec one  PSU: Thermaltake 1000w  Display: HP Elite Display 321i 23''  Storage: Samsung 840 Evo 128gb, Seagate Barracuda 1tb

 

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Guessing he means - http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?page_id=1694in which case - waste of time. Airflow is probably trash given that there's no fan intake, much less exhaust.

 

Edit: and overpriced as all hell...

PdGi.png

 

 

Hello, this is my computer system. It would probably be of some benefit to check out the build page, which has more details on the build and explains things more thoroughly. http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725

 

In regards to the airflow, if you look at the chart you linked, you'll see that there is indeed a case fan for intake, its a 140mm Noctua fan in fact. So the airflow is actually quite good considering the high CFM fan and such a small case volume. The cooling system is quite effective at removing heat quickly, and during testing performed very well during extended stress tests. 

 

In regards to the price, I know I'm probably a bit biased, but I feel like the pricing is pretty fair. For example, here is a list of the component costs for the $999 version

 

  • Motherboard = $150
  • CPU i3-4360 = $150
  • Memory = $70
  • SSD = $85
  • DVD/CD Drive = $35
  • CPU Cooler = $50
  • Wireless card = $30
  • Power Supply = $70
  • Case Fan = $20
  • LEDs + Controller = $25
  • USB Extensions + Wiring + Antennas =$35
  • Computer Parts Total = $720
  • Lego Bricks = $150
  • Total = $870

 

So for the cost of building the system, testing and configuring it I charge about $130 with that model. The computer is made up of a little over 800 pieces of Lego, so it takes a bit of time to go through and build a system.  

 

In terms of performance I feel like there are few if any computers out there that offer the performance in that small of a form factor, for the price range it's in. You'd have to look at something like a Mac Mini in terms of form factor (though the Lego Computer is taller), but in comparison that Mac Mini costs quite a bit more and does not offer anywhere near the performance level of what the i7 version offers.

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Hello, this is my computer system. It would probably be of some benefit to check out the build page, which has more details on the build and explains things more thoroughly. http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725

In terms of performance I feel like there are few if any computers out there that offer the performance in that small of a form factor, for the price range it's in. You'd have to look at something like a Mac Mini in terms of form factor (though the Lego Computer is taller), but in comparison that Mac Mini costs quite a bit more and does not offer anywhere near the performance level of what the i7 version offers.

Enthusiast forum. Very few of us would buy prebuilts of any form, and for those who are looking for prebuilts, I don't think they'd consider a machine made of legos worth the price.

Props to you, in any case for being honest and the concept. 

 

Edit: If hopes you haven't read this yet, what's the "durability" of it, so to speak. Say, if it were incidentally dropped? Would it break into tons of pieces, or would it stay mostly in tact?

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Enthusiast forum. Very few of us would buy prebuilts of any form, and for those who are looking for prebuilts, I don't think they'd consider a machine made of legos worth the price.

Props to you, in any case for being honest and the concept. 

 

Edit: If hopes you haven't read this yet, what's the "durability" of it, so to speak. Say, if it were incidentally dropped? Would it break into tons of pieces, or would it stay mostly in tact?

 

No problem, and thanks. 

 

Understood on the crowd here being far more into building their own systems. I would definitely categorize myself into that same group, I enjoy building my own systems. This Lego Computer however is more for those that are interested in a pre-built system. Years ago I built my first Lego computer and had posted it online and the feedback and response I got was overwhelming. Since then I've had a pretty constant stream of people that ask me to build them a Lego based computer, and that's what I've been doing the last couple of years. With each system I built though I was doing everything custom, and as I built more and more systems I decided that I wanted to work on designing a system that would fit the vast majority of requests I was getting. So I put together a list of the most common requests and requirements and kind of combined that into a new design, that would be standardized. This allowed me to design and test the system pretty extensively so I would have a go-to system to offer those that inquired about a Lego based computer. 

 

I agree that most of the "build-it-yourself" crowd would rather do just that and do it themselves. But there are also a very large number of people that don't have the skills or knowledge required to do that, and a lot of those people also happen to be big Lego fans. That's the majority of the people I get that buy systems. Some people have computer skills, but the idea of building a somewhat complex Lego case out of 800 pieces of Lego is very daunting. On the other end of the spectrum are those that are completely capable and comfortable with the Lego building portion, but have no experience with computer building and do not feel comfortable with the computer building aspect. That's where this system kind of fits, for the those that really like Lego, and want a fairly powerful computer, but don't have the ability or background to do either the Lego or computer portions of the build. 

 

In terms of durability, the case actually works quite well in a drop test. I know this because I actually tested this out with my first development system to see what would happen in the result of a fall. I assumed that most falls would occur from being pushed off a desk, so I pushed a fully built system off a desk height of about 34" down onto a hardwood floor. The computer is bottom heavy, so it barely started to rotate, and by the time it hit the floor it landed on the one corner of the case. A couple of pieces popped off (the smooth flat tiles around one edge) and the case deformed and pushed up from the impact corner. This pushed up all the pieces from that corner and above for about the next 3 inches, deforming the whole corner of the case and causing a separation between all the bricks. However, they did not come apart. I took the top off to check internally and found the pieces around the motherboard shifted up and let the motherboard move up a little bit. Overall though the case stayed together, and I was able to push all the pieces back together and replace the couple pieces that popped off. After that I fired it up and it didn't seem to have caused any issue with the hardware.

 

My thinking is that between the weight being fairly light (it's 6lbs for the whole computer) and the ability of all the Lego pieces to shift and buckle slightly across numerous rows of Lego, that it transferred most of the energy of the fall quite effectively and dispersed it in slightly separating all the Lego pieces. Kind of like a Lego crumple-zone effect. 

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I think it's pretty cool and looks good.  It appeals to me as a project rather than a "turn key" finished build.   I might try making a little mini ITX server to my specifications.  Maybe with some hot swap trayless bays for 5x3.5HDD in a 3x5.5 space.  Maybe even put in a GTX 970 mini card.  By then it would not look nearly as tidy and compact as TotalGeek's Lego build.  Still it sounds like it would be a ton of fun to create.

 

Congratulations to Totalgeek on the design and best of luck on its commercial success.

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It looks pretty cool,i've been thinking about building one myself for a while from either lego,or just a steel frame,where some of the frame tubes are also the watercooling reservoir,and using some of the frame tubes for cable management

If i build one from lego,i would do the design nothing like what you see in the totalgeek link.

 

Hot air rises,why would you suck up the cool air from the top,and blow out hot air from the bottom. :huh:

With 30 minutes of gaming you're sucking up hot air,but maybe i'm missing something.

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I think it's pretty cool and looks good.  It appeals to me as a project rather than a "turn key" finished build.   I might try making a little mini ITX server to my specifications.  Maybe with some hot swap trayless bays for 5x3.5HDD in a 3x5.5 space.  Maybe even put in a GTX 970 mini card.  By then it would not look nearly as tidy and compact as TotalGeek's Lego build.  Still it sounds like it would be a ton of fun to create.

 

Congratulations to Totalgeek on the design and best of luck on its commercial success.

 

Thanks! 

 

 

It looks pretty cool,i've been thinking about building one myself for a while from either lego,or just a steel frame,where some of the frame tubes are also the watercooling reservoir,and using some of the frame tubes for cable management

If i build one from lego,i would do the design nothing like what you see in the totalgeek link.

 

Hot air rises,why would you suck up the cool air from the top,and suck in hot air from the bottom. :huh:

With 30 minutes of gaming you're sucking up hot air,but maybe i'm missing something.

 

Thank you :) 

 

In a regular computer, with a mid-tower or full tower case, they design the airflow to work with convection to aid in cooling. It works, but it leaves some cooling performance on the table as you're not actually blowing a stream of "fresh" air over all the components, you're just exchanging air. It's effective enough and get the job done, but in a high performance system it leaves areas that do not get direct airflow, and as a result get hotter. These would all be considered localized hot spots. 

 

This design, with the much smaller case volume, coupled with the high flow fan position only inches away from the top of the motherboard, allows for a constant stream of fresh air blown directly over the entire surface of the motherboard, which cools everything and is more effective. Convection is still a thing, but in this case it's effects are overshadowed by the large amount of airflow and the small volume of the case. If you have a look at the design page on my site you'll see an explanation of this along with graphics that show how this works. http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725

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It would be awesome if you could stack them and each additional block added something extra, e.g another processor (i know this would require a complete new type of motherboard to accomondate, but its an idea....) or GPU or something. 

 

I like it though!

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Thanks! 

 

 

 

Thank you :)

 

In a regular computer, with a mid-tower or full tower case, they design the airflow to work with convection to aid in cooling. It works, but it leaves some cooling performance on the table as you're not actually blowing a stream of "fresh" air over all the components, you're just exchanging air. It's effective enough and get the job done, but in a high performance system it leaves areas that do not get direct airflow, and as a result get hotter. These would all be considered localized hot spots. 

 

This design, with the much smaller case volume, coupled with the high flow fan position only inches away from the top of the motherboard, allows for a constant stream of fresh air blown directly over the entire surface of the motherboard, which cools everything and is more effective. Convection is still a thing, but in this case it's effects are overshadowed by the large amount of airflow and the small volume of the case. If you have a look at the design page on my site you'll see an explanation of this along with graphics that show how this works. http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725

Thanks for explaining,i edited my post,i ofcourse meant blow out hot air from the bottom,and not suck in hot air from the bottom  :blink:

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It would be awesome if you could stack them and each additional block added something extra, e.g another processor (i know this would require a complete new type of motherboard to accomondate, but its an idea....) or GPU or something. 

 

I like it though!

 

Thanks! I'm actually working on some other new versions as well, with various other functionality. 

 

Thanks for explaining,i edited my post,i ofcourse meant blow out hot air from the bottom,and not suck in hot air from the bottom  :blink:

 

No problem :) 

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This is a great idea to attract younger and even older non-pc enthusiasts to get into the world of PC's.

They might even get interested into building PC's. 

All it takes is a system they will be proud to own and say it's unique, and I think this is pretty unique.

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This is a great idea to attract younger and even older non-pc enthusiasts to get into the world of PC's.

They might even get interested into building PC's. 

All it takes is a system they will be proud to own and say it's unique, and I think this is pretty unique.

 

Thanks! :)

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Hello, this is my computer system. It would probably be of some benefit to check out the build page, which has more details on the build and explains things more thoroughly. http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=1725

 

In regards to the airflow, if you look at the chart you linked, you'll see that there is indeed a case fan for intake, its a 140mm Noctua fan in fact. So the airflow is actually quite good considering the high CFM fan and such a small case volume. The cooling system is quite effective at removing heat quickly, and during testing performed very well during extended stress tests. 

 

In regards to the price, I know I'm probably a bit biased, but I feel like the pricing is pretty fair. For example, here is a list of the component costs for the $999 version

 

  • Motherboard = $150
  • CPU i3-4360 = $150
  • Memory = $70
  • SSD = $85
  • DVD/CD Drive = $35
  • CPU Cooler = $50
  • Wireless card = $30
  • Power Supply = $70
  • Case Fan = $20
  • LEDs + Controller = $25
  • USB Extensions + Wiring + Antennas =$35
  • Computer Parts Total = $720
  • Lego Bricks = $150
  • Total = $870

 

So for the cost of building the system, testing and configuring it I charge about $130 with that model. The computer is made up of a little over 800 pieces of Lego, so it takes a bit of time to go through and build a system.  

 

In terms of performance I feel like there are few if any computers out there that offer the performance in that small of a form factor, for the price range it's in. You'd have to look at something like a Mac Mini in terms of form factor (though the Lego Computer is taller), but in comparison that Mac Mini costs quite a bit more and does not offer anywhere near the performance level of what the i7 version offers.

Since when are Mobos 150? A MITX/MATX with onboard wifi is like 120-130. That cuts out like 50$ right there.

Someone told Luke and Linus at CES 2017 to "Unban the legend known as Jerakl" and that's about all I've got going for me. (It didn't work)

 

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What's this crap? HD Playback and Streaming for the i3 model is 80%. 80% of what?

post-7355-0-33583100-1433052432_thumb.jp

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What's this crap? HD Playback and Streaming for the i3 model is 80%. 80% of what?

attachicon.gifCapture.JPG

Woo! That integrated GPU gives me 70% Gaming and 95% photo and video editing too!!!

 

But seriously, what's with this "performance"?

Case? how is that related to performance, especially since it's the same value on all of the charts. Shouldn't this be in the feature list or something?

Office and productivity? Productivity is vague, but i don't see how an i3 struggles to use ms word.

Internet browsing? Again, all the same, so why include it? I don't really expect modern PC's to struggle with browsing the internet (especially for $1k or more)

HD playback and streaming? They all have the same GPU, and the CPU even as an i3 is plenty for this. If you're playing back high bitrate, high resolution stuff then the i3 might struggle a little but i doubt it. And the percentage doesn't mean a thing.

Gaming? This is a valid addition to the chart, but again with the percentage? While the latest integrated graphics aren't that terrible, i wouldn't really expect to play games that well with them. What's 100%? the max frame rate in a certain game of A titan X? a GTX 780? From what this looks like it's the cheapest dedicated card which beats the chip in this.

why are photo and video editing bundled together like that? Video editing is much more intensive than photo editing. And i'm not talking about a 12k image in photoshop vs piecing together a low res video in movie maker.

Content creation? isn't photo and video editing content creation? Oh, that's probably why they have exactly the same percentages... But i really doubt that there's a 20% improvement in performance between the i3 and i7 when i'm recording my podcast in audacity.

Aragorn (WS): 250D | 6800k | 840 Pro 512GB | Intel 530 480GB  | Asus X99-M WS | 64GB DDR4 | Corsair HX720i | GTX 1070 | Corsair H115i | Philips BDM4350UC 43" 3840x2160 IPS

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1k for an i3 ofc

 

And why would they do that when 50$ more gets them the i5?

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Since when are Mobos 150? A MITX/MATX with onboard wifi is like 120-130. That cuts out like 50$ right there.

 

The motherboard is not MITX/MATX, those are too big and won't fit. The motherboard is thin-mini ITX, so they cost a bit more than a MITX/MATX board. A decent one with a fair amount of features cost about $150.

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